The Heathen Crusade Metalfest 4, which was scheduled for Saturday, March 9th at Station 4 in St. Paul, MN has been canceled.

The following statement was issued by the organizers of the fest:

Do to unforeseen issues on both sides, the Heathen Crusade Metalfest is canceled. We are extremely sorry for any in convinces this may have caused. For those who have purchased tickets, please email info@vitaltickets.com or log into the vitaltickets.com website and cancel your order. We wish you all the best and all the bands that were supposed to be on the bill. For those who already bought tickets, I will be sending out CDs that we have received from labels and bands personally. Again if you have any questions for me personally you may email me at: contact@heathencrusadefest.com.

The 2013 edition fo the Viking/Folk/Pagan metal festival was announced almost a year ago to feature bands including EINHERJER (Norway), VANIR (Denmark), ASHAENA (Romania), TRELLEBORG (RUSSIA), VESPERIA (formerly BOLEROS) (Canada), MINOS (U.S.) among others, some of whom had canceled and been replaced in the months leading up to the festival date.

The organizers of Heathen Crusade have announced three more acts for the event, which will take place on March 9th, 2013 at Station 4 in St Paul, MN. Newly confirmed acts include Canadian acoustic folk metal act SIG:AR:TYR (making a rare live appearance), Celtic thrashers Battlesoul (Canada) and Winterhymn (U.S).

This is the fourth installment of the Heathen Crusade Festival. Past years events have seen the likes of Primordial, Moonsorrow, Thyrfing, Bal-Sagoth, Vreid, Metsatoll, Skyforger, Rudra, Meal Mordha, Obtest and Manegarm all making their US debuts. Stay tuned for upcoming announcements on additional confirmations, which can be obtained by going to the Heathen Crusade website.

Blame it on the liquored egg nog or a simple exuberance to finally tear open those beautiful packages under the tree, but somehow we didn't get up the list of new Rock Band Network metal songs last Friday. Just because it isn't the weekend doesn't mean you can't pull down the plastic guitars and get a-rocking, though, as this week sees quite a few new metal entries to the game.

The Xbox 360 version has been taken over by the likes of Dimmu Borgir, Arkaea, Battlesoul, Heaven Shall Burn, and Deadlock. On December 28th the PS3 version of Rock Band gets more Suicide Silence, All That Remains, and Between the Buried and Me. Continuing to beef up its metal selection, the Wii edition gets IWrestledABearOnce, Demon Hunter, and Asking Alexandria on January 4th.

The newly added Xbox 360 tracks, including all the non-metal songs, are as follows:

Battlesoul has signed a record deal with CDN records for the release of the band's new album "Lay Down Thy Burdens." CDN records commented on the signing:

"Battlesoul blew us away with their brand of melodic death/thrash mixed with Celtic themes Battlesoul will be a priority over the next 8-12 months including our first downloadable CD on the CDN Records site. Pre orders will also be taken soon on the CDN records site and The End Records site CD and shirt bundles, stickers, buttons etc. Battlesoul joins an already impressive roster at CDN records, with new cd's scheduled from Shinje, Mortify, Wicked Angel in 2011"

The band also commented: "Battlesoul is proud to be part of the CDN roster. With this we hope to gain exposure with our debut release 'Lay Down thy Burdens' which will be released late fall 2010. For now enjoy the trailer from the album and the track 'Signal the Storm' at this location."

Canada's Catharcyst has announced an upcoming Halloween show on October 30th, 2010 in Sudbury, Ontario. The lineup for the show also includes Will of the Ancients, Strings of Ares, Battlesoul, Bolero, and Before the Black Gates. The promotional poster for the show can be viewed at this location and the details are as follows:

Celtic thrashers Battlesoul have issued the following update about preparing to hit the recording studio:

"Greetings!

"We are proud to announce that we have finally completed the writing process for our new album, still yet without a title. It's going to be 11 tracks, approximately an hour. The material turned out to be much more melodic with more complex arrangements and longer structures, while still keeping the integrity of what we did on our EP. We begin tracking drums this week at the infamous Ice House Studios."